Picture of the Day: Catholicism for Dummies ft. Me

Consider Catholicism as "X" and X= religion

Ignorance Disguised as Open Mindedness

I am fortunate enough to have worked with academics for some time now. The lessons I have learned will influence me for the rest of my life. Most importantly, the correct interpretation and misinterpretation of information (from my experience, the latter occurs much more often than the first). A vital part of been a good academic is an open minded attitude to new ideas and possibilities. In fact, I would suggest that it is a positive approach to life - it opens the possibility of limitlessness. However, often under the disguise of a noble open minded individual, in my experience, comes pure ignorance.

I consider myself to be open minded - that is, I always wish to hear new ideas or ideas that challenge my own and therefore allow me to fortify my opinions or create new ones. That does not mean however that I do not have an opinion, an opinion that does not leave me balancing on the proverbial fence.

Google images ftw

 It seems nothing more than ignorance to me to hear someone declare "there is no best way". Of course there is a best way! Undoubtly and unquestionably. Finding and defining that "way" is often a tricky business on certain topics, but it is there. Whether we as humans have the chance of finding it, is another matter. All we can do it apply rational logic and science, which it seems these people often appreciate but in their ignorance they avoid decision by claiming open mindedness. Furthermore, those who consider "there is no best way" often seem to practice a specific way - which is really (excluding certain variables) an indication that they must think there is a best way, a contradiction indeed!

I am open minded. However, I like to make decisions. Decisions make science and philosophy worth pondering. If there clearly is no conclusion to be accurately and/or rationally drawn from a subject then make yourself comfortable on the fence. If you have not been exposed to appropriate information then it's also a safe spot.

My top three worst "open minded" comments are:

1) "There is no best way" 

                            

2) "Use a mixture of lots of different things, variety is the key"

3) "It's different for everyone"

To me this is a fob off comment, it's not untrue but it's used too often as something of an excuse for a lack of knowledge.

Anyway, I'm off to go eat a varied and balanced diet and use a variety of exercise techniques in my workout in case I accidently eat/use the right one and find what's best for me. After all, everyone is different and there is no best way, right? 

Human Obligation

I have heard this phrase used constantly recently and it really bothers me. The only obligation a human/animal has is to him/herself. By that I am certainly not suggesting that charity is bad. In fact, I see charity as the best means to prevent the guilt people often feel by not helping those "in need" - the guilt which quite probably is created through social indoctrination. For those who have not addressed the nature of selfishness and still consider it to have bad connotations - everything you do is ultimately selfish and you will work that out by asking yourself the right questions...

e.g.

I want to help the casualties of the Japan earthquake.

why?

Because they are suffering.

Why does that bother you?

It makes me feel bad.

Why? (the final why here is simply to provoke thought, not to address the current topic)

Result - your giving to prevent yourself from feeling bad or to make yourself feel good. Undoubtedly selfish reasons. So still think being selfish is bad? You can't get away from it - everything rationally boils down to selfishness. So are you, whoever you maybe, here to serve me? Are you my slave and in turn am I yours? The religious lobby may answer yes, the rest of the sensible people would probably say no. Now you may think the use of the word "slave" in my analogy there to be over the top, but lets consider the conflict in Libya.

Mr Gaddafi does very bad things to people in his country so we are told (that was not sarcasm - purely noting that it is what your are told and not what you know first hand). You may or may not disagree with his actions. Regardless, the money you have taken from you in taxes is used to fund military action to "help" those who disagree with his regime and prevent him from oppressing his people. A note on taxes - remember you are forced to pay them, your only other option is to go to jail. So your forced to work for others - now that’s actually not far away from slavery, by definition. So why do we feel bad that bad things happen in Libya, really and honestly? Is it because you are socially conditioned to believe we have a responsibility to each other? Is the realisation that bad things happen too harder concept to deal with. Maybe it's because you would like to believe that if you were in that position that people would offer you help. A nice thought but if you live in the developed world - it won't happen and you know it. Thus it is irrational.

We, the western world are much much more civilised than a lot of Arab countries. Oooo controversial, true but also fact. Our treatment of woman, animals and each other impinges significantly less on our individual "god given" rights than it would if we were citizens of those countries. However, the arrogance of western leaders (which we blindly follow) allows them to police the world and tell people how they should live. What is best for them may well be something closer to "our" way but by forcing it on them is terrorism.

Once again, lets go kill some people for the greater good!

Nobody is obligated to do anything for anyone but themselves. I may or may not give to charitable causes to help people if it gives me some form of gratification but I will not pretend to feel things I do not because socially I am told to. If I don't feel them, does that make me a "bad person"? Well in the eyes of the socially conditioned, yes. Within my obligation to myself, I like to help and maintain happiness with my family, my girlfriend and her family and my friends...why? because it makes me feel good. My charitable contributions serve me in a similar but less saticfying way.

Edit: ...and by the way, if you really really are affected by the Colonel, go join the rebels - otherwise it really can't bother you that much.

Quote of the Day: Awarded to Pat Condell

"Hi I'm Pat Condell, I don't respect your beliefs and I don't care if your offended. Cheers."

Stole this picture from a piece on his website, which if you fancy a giggle at religion, take a look here.



Picture of the Day: Freeeeeeeedooooom!!!

Epic Symbol. If you haven't picked up where this still is from...sort it out.

Subjective Perfection

The limitation of linguistics prevent me from describing the way I feel about my partner Ellen. The closest word available to me is "perfect". She will probably kill me for putting the below picture on here because her interpretation of the way she looks is very different to mine. Regardless, as the thought of her entered my head. I felt compelled to post what my perfect is.

"My Perfect"

Defining Me – Part 1: Andrew Eric King, Andy, Drew, Long Socks, Ginga, Ging, Hurricane, Warlock…

I created this blog off the back off two others I had started for two separate reasons. The first was to have a space to moan and rant about the world around me. The other to talk about health, fitness and nutrition based issues, something that is of great interest to me. However, as these topics are a source of a lot of my moaning and ranting, I decided to merge the two. So here we are.

Having posted on a few topics and written a number of drafts on my previous blogs, I found it really satisfying and addictive writing about my thoughts. I think this is for two main reasons. Firstly, I think I have a decent level of intellect (by this I mean I am able to rationalise and apply knowledge objectively) but my brain does seem to process my thoughts in an incoherent order. Which means I tend to just have lots of ideas/thoughts flying around and it’s hard to pin them down. Hence, writing them has really helped. Secondly, writing and ordering my thoughts has helped me understand me. For the past 12 months approximately, I have had varying levels of depression. Granted I believe that depression is over diagnosed and unnecessarily medicated in a lot of cases (probably including mine) but suffice it to say, I wasn’t a happy chapy.

One of the thoughts I had during that time was a lack of identity. Not feeling like I had anything to separate myself from any other human being, made me feel worthless. Among some other irrational concerns the joys of that state of mind brought me, it was this that bothered me the most. Over the past two months I have seen myself returning to normality and I attribute this to my new found sense of identity. While it remains by no means clear and I doubt it ever will, my views on the world, humanity and existence have become much more distinct. So as the thoughts appear in my brain, the deep ones, the funny ones, the useless ones and as I see things unfold around me as I grow older and wiser – I shall immortalise them here so if my identity is ever in question, I need look no further.

So who is Andrew Eric King, Andy, Drew, Long Socks, Ginga, Ging, Hurricane, Warlock and any other nickname I have yet to be given, I shall try to continue to answer that on this blog, not for you – for me and the needs of my sanity.

Picture of the Day: That monkey is fishing

Where did he get such a straight stick? I'm jealous. It is of course impossible to beat the immortalisation of the moment this monkey thought "ooo Salmon kebab!", but second place goes to...

Ah the endless humor that is the comical motivational poster!

Abortion

A subject which is irrationally taboo (these are of course my favourites subjects!). Contraception is removing the potential to create a potential baby. Abortion is removing the potential to have a baby. The two differ only in the complexity of their application, their timing and the physiological effects on the girl/woman (and the man if we include sterilisation). However, the use of abortion is an issue of morality. What creates the taboo on this subject is the idea that it is a living being and removing it is comparable to murder in its simplest form. Those who believe everything has a spirit (or whatever alternative name they have for this mythical presence) my also bring this in the argument.

Of course dealing with the unprovable, ideas that rely on the creativity of the human mind in defining its existence through notions requiring faith, makes suggesting the rights and wrong of morality issues an unending battle. But if we are able to remove faith from this argument and replace it with reason, we should be able to think of abortion in a similar way to contraception - removing the potential to have a baby. I use the word potential because its not an individual living being until and umbilical cord is cut. It has extremely limited abilities to perceive the world around it prior to and for a long period after this event. Its ability to reason and retain any information during this time is next to none. So without a consciousness of note, why do we feel bad about terminating its creation. The thought of becoming a parent is a potent one and so I do not take the idea of abortion lightly but when I turn this morality issue on its head to look at why it is wrong to allow the creation of a child, then the issue becomes simple.

Isn't bringing a child into a world whereby the parent will knowingly not be able to provide for it the best they can in that current part of their life, worse than giving it a deprived life? Why go through the physiological strain a woman must endure only to bring a child into a world without the attention or finances it deserves.  Why also allow the birth of a child if you feel you as a parent, will miss out on things you wish to do in your life. The baby isn't going to be sat in some afterlife somewhere feeling pissed with you - it simply ceases to exist.

In the UK we can bring in the element of child benefits which makes it more immoral to have a child if you can't provide for it yourself. Using money the government takes from everyone to pay for yourself and your child is no more than theft. Having a child that you cannot care for as well as you might in a different situation, is unnecessary and a burden but...having a child that means you rely on others (by that I mean un-consenting strangers who are forced to pay taxes) is wrong. Consider this...

 

Chav A and chav B breed chav C - Chav A and B teach chav C (either literally or through example) that its ok to live off benefits and bring more children into the world using the resources from everybody else. Chav C meets chav D and creates chav E, F, G and H - the cycle continues, the scale grows larger - the problem perpetuates itself.



For any international readers these are chavs, to avoid confusion - and no I don't feel bad about describing them as a colletive. Imagine someone who has no regard for anyone but themself, which is fine, but then lives of the grace or taxes of everyone around them, not fine.

Forget the superstitious crap and choose what’s right for you and the life you have the power to create or prevent. The responsibility of parenthood is for those who can nurture a human into their conscious existence understanding their own rights and inherent in that, the rights of everyone else.

Abortion is a blessing of science for those who have accidents, nothing less, nothing more.

Quote of the day: Awarded to James Fisher

"I'm about to poo like a champion"

(The smell certainly suggested truth in the statement. Call in the cleaners, Mr Fisher has been)